Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
by Countryole
Summary: No one should be alone on Christmas.


**Summary:** This was my Blindspot secret santa gift for Theladyssif over on Tumblr. Cross posting it here for all you other lovelies to read! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! xo

 _ **Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.**_

* * *

Jane sits at her desk, chewing absently on her finger, studying a set of photographs laid out in front of her. It's a collection of images of all her solved tattoos, but she's taken Patterson's warning to heart, and she spends her spare time now rechecking them, retracing her steps, trying to find something she might have missed.

It's the Thursday before Christmas Eve, and most of the squad room is empty, people having gone home for the holidays. The only people that linger are on-call agents and analysts, but even then the building is eerily quiet. Jane doesn't mind it though, she's used to the silence—she even enjoys it. She's content to sit here alone with her thoughts, because there's something about the bright, sterile light of the squad room that makes it easier to think than the shadows of her apartment. Maybe it's the fact that, even though it's only her and a handful of other people here, she doesn't feel so alone.

Of course even if she _was_ alone, she knows it won't be for long. She's waiting for Patterson to finish up in her lab, making sure her assistants can manage it through the long weekend ahead of them while she's gone. Jane has agreed to drive her to the airport; she and Tasha managed to convince Patterson to buy a plane ticket home to Florida to see her family for the holidays. It's going to be good for her, Jane thinks, to be around the people who love her. Especially after the month she's had. Especially after the month they've all had…

Jane shuffles the photographs into a pile and slides them back into the folder they'd been in with a sigh. Maybe It would be good for her, too, to get away from her work for more than a nights sleep.

She's so lost in her own head she doesn't notice the man that walks up behind her.

"Hey, Jane."

She could pick up the deep tenor of that voice in a crowded room, and it never ceases to amaze her that all it takes to make her stomach flip these days is for Kurt Weller to say her name.

Jane turns in her seat, glancing up to see him take a few steps toward her. He's already got his gloves in one hand, his keys in the other, indicating that he's heading home. But even so, Jane notices his work follows him, and he's never quite free of it; she can see the brief flash of the shoulder holsters beneath the trench coat he's wearing when he comes to a stop in front of her.

"Hey," she echoes, green eyes cast upward to meet the blue ones peering back at her.

The brief moment of silence that follows drags on for an eternity, and Jane suffers through it as if it were hours instead of seconds.

Of course there are a million things she could say, anything really to hold a basic conversation with him, but even that simple task seems more complicated than usual. And Jane knows why, she's painfully aware of the part she's played in it, she knows she's the one to blame for the distance between them that wasn't there before. _You're the one who kissed him_ , she thinks. _You started it_. And further more, besides the kiss, she drove the wedge further between them after the team found her bound and tied, in the basement of a building with Carter's dead body and no explanation of what had happened. That was four weeks ago.

And if things weren't complicated enough, Kurt's the only one who _does_ know what happened. He's the only one who knows about what Oscar said to her, about the video, and he's kept that secret for weeks now. He's kept it from the team, from Mayfair. He's lied to the people he trusts, _for her_ , and Jane feels nothing but guilt and regret because of it. Who is she to ask him to sacrifice anything else on her behalf?

And so here they are, and Jane can't help but notice that even though they're so close, close enough she could reach out and grab him, he feels so very far away.

 _And it's your fault._

"I thought you and Sarah were leaving tonight," she says finally, breaking the smothering lull, "did you change your mind?"

"No. We leave tomorrow night," Kurt explains, stuffing his keys and his gloves in his pockets. It leaves his hands empty, and Jane can't help but remember the way those same hands had held her face, and how his fingers hand tangled in her hair—had it really been a month since it happened? Since she'd kissed him? It still felt like yesterday.

"It'll be fun," Jane offers, though her attempt at sounding sincere falls slightly short. Kurt smiles at her though, running a hand along the back of his neck, trying not to make a face. She imagines he's picturing how well the family reunion with his father will go, or perhaps how well it _won't_ go, if his previously voiced opinions on Bill Weller were anything to go by.

"Fun," Kurt murmurs, unconvinced, "that's one way to put it."

He moves a little closer, sits along the edge of her desk, fidgets with his hands, and Jane wants so badly to reach out and touch him. She wishes she could quell the anxiety in him, but she can't even do that for herself these days, let alone someone else. His leg brushes her knees, and he's still watching her, still waiting. She thinks he's probably trying to gauge just how far the distance is, from him to her, and if there's any possibility of either of them crossing it.

Possibility is the least thing she can give him, she knows, but it's all she can force herself to spare.

"I'll miss you." Jane says, and against her better judgement she reaches up and grabs his forearm, curls her fingers lightly into his coat. _I have missed you. I still miss you_. That's what she really wants to say, because that's the truth. Kurt's pleasantly surprised, and his eyes flit from her, to her hand, and back again. Jane realizes that this is the closest they've been in weeks, and the small, boyish grin that sneaks its way onto his face makes her wonder why she continues to torture herself by trying to keep him away.

"I'll miss you too." He says softly, only loud enough for her to hear it, "and when I get back, we need to talk."

His words are a promise that simultaneously fill her with hope and dread, but it's the hope that she holds onto now, because if there's one certainty—despite all the ghosts and shadows of her past—it's that Kurt is the one thing that remains constant. He's the one thing, in all of this, that refuses to change.

She wants to tell him this, she wants to tell him _so many things_ , and she almost does…

"Jane are you ready?" They hear Patterson before they see her, and she rounds the corner of the hallway at a power walk, digging through her purse, completely unaware of what's happening. "We should have plenty of time to get to JFK, but the traffic is always awful this time of year…" It's not until she looks up that she realizes Jane isn't alone, and when she registers that it's Kurt sitting on Jane's desk a flash of recognition hits her, and she can't help but grin. "Oh, hi there, Kurt."

"Hey, Patterson," he nods, calm as can be, and Jane envies him for that, for always being able to act as if nothing in the world could rattle him.

"Ready," Jane replies, quickly pulling her hand away, and pushing back her chair just as Kurt stands up, grabbing her jacket off the back of it. She's glad to have something else for her hands to hold on to besides him. Patterson is eyeballing both of them suspiciously, especially Jane, but she doesn't barrage either of them with questions, for which Jane is grateful. However, the ride to the airport would likely be another story.

"See you next week?" Patterson turns to Kurt, beaming and bright, and Jane's temporarily pulled away from her own turmoil by the blonde's beautiful smile. She's been the happiest she's been in weeks the last few days, and Jane hopes that this trip will do her good, that seeing her mom and her sisters will help dull the pain of David a little more. Of course Jane's not so naive to think that it will ever complete go away, as much as she wishes it would—but this is a start. Sometimes a start is all it took.

"Definitely," Kurt pulls Patterson into a hug, all but swallowing the petite scientist with his arms, "don't have too much fun on the beach without us, ok?"

"Promise." Patterson replies, squeezing Kurt tight before letting him go.  
Kurt turns to Jane next, but he stays where he's at, that soft smile he reserves especially for her the only thing he offers her.

"See ya, Jane," Kurt nods, and he gives her one last lingering look before he turns and makes his way towards the elevators. She stands and and watches him go, and when he disappears behind the sliding doors she can finally release the breath she's been holding. Patterson stands next to her with crossed arms and an inquiring expression, and Jane can see the gears spinning behind her friends inquisitive blue eyes. Nothing escapes her.

"Wanna tell me what that was all about?" Patterson raises an eyebrow, tilting her head.

"Not really," Jane admits, still staring at the empty space in front of the elevator were Kurt had been.

* * *

Patterson has made the gracious offer to let Jane borrow her car while she's gone, so she takes the opportunity to take the scenic route home once she leaves the airport.

New York is just as mad as usual with traffic, doubly so because of the holiday season, so she steers clear of the main city and sticks to the outskirts of town, drives out toward the Staten Island ferry and along the waterfront. She takes her time, trying to be careful—she'll admit her driving skills are still a little rusty—but she navigates the roads like she's lived here all her life. Her night time adventures evading her security detail to sneak around the city come in handy now as she takes the long way back home. She can't help but think, despite the convenience of a vehicle, that she much prefers the subway.

As she turns down her street, she isn't expecting to see anything. Her detail had been given the weekend off, so long as she checks in every six hours. So there are no black, unmarked SUVs, or men in suits and earpieces lingering in the road. It's nice, not to have a constant shadow looking over her shoulder for once, to have a little bit of freedom without fear of being silently judged for it. And yet at the same time the lack of attention reminds her that she's very much alone.

Or at least, she _thinks_ she is.

So she's surprised when she pulls into the small driveway of her place to see someone sitting on her doorstep.

She's surprised even more when she realizes that someone is Tasha Zapata.

"Do you know how long I've been sitting here?" Tash yells as Jane climbs out of the little red Honda.

"You could have called," Jane replies pointedly, huddling into her jacket, arms wrapped around herself against the cold as she walks up the path, "what _are_ you doing here? Isn't your brother coming in to town with his family?"

"Their flight was delayed leaving Berlin because of weather," Tash stands, adjusting her scarf, and Jane notices the brown paper bag in her hand and the backpack hanging her shoulder, "they should be state side by tomorrow afternoon, if nothing else happens… But it is my brother Nic we're talking about," Tash says with a grin, "he's a magnet for bad luck like that. Don't worry though, it all worked out."

"How so?" Jane tilts her head, fingers buried under her arms and her teeth chattering as a gust of cold wind hits her.

"Because I brought this to warm you up," Tash holds out the bag to Jane gleefully, "and we're going to drink it, watch movies, and not be sad together. I hope you didn't have any plans, and I hope you don't mind if I crash on your couch tonight."

A bottle of Jefferson's bourbon is what Jane pulls out of the bag. It's her favorite one of all the different brands she and Tash and Patterson have tried on their nights out together. It's also the most expensive, though she recalls Tash saying something about expensive tastes being the foundation for a rich life, so that's how she justifies her said expensive tastes. Jane holds it to her chest with both hands and grins at her friend.

"You didn't have to do this," Jane says quietly, touched that Tash had thought of her, "and of course you can stay."

Tash has become one of her closest friends over the last few months, one of the people she knows will shoot her straight and call her out if she needs it. She's a no nonsense kind of person, who sees things and people for what they are, and her keen and calculating ability to read certain situations is something Jane admires about her. She knows how to find what makes people tick, and she doesn't give up when things get difficult. While her unconventional sense of humor and sometimes misinterpreted attitude made her the bane of her coworkers existence at times, it's what Jane liked about her most. There's also the fact that she knows Tash—despite the front she puts up—has a heart made of gold.

"I didn't have to," Tash shrugs, "but I wanted to, so don't go getting all sappy on me ok? Now hurry and let's go inside, because my ass and my feet started getting frostbite thirty minutes ago."

Jane laughs, the first time she's laughed today, and she digs her house keys out of her pocket, cradling the bourbon in the opposite arm as she climbs the steps to join Tash at the door.

* * *

Jane and Tash spend the night lounging on the couch in her living room with their Chinese takeout, only crawling out from underneath their blankets to use the bathroom, refill their drinks, and reset Jane's Blu-ray player (Reade's early Christmas present to her). They make it through White Christmas, A Christmas Story, and Elf, and Tash being the good friend she is answers all of Jane's questions as they watch. They've made a significant dent in the bottle of bourbon, and Jane should be tired, but her cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much, and she knows the warmth in her chest isn't just from the alcohol.

"It's supposed to snow a lot tomorrow night," Tash muses aloud, scrolling through the weather app on her phone while the Christmas episode of Parks and Recreation plays in the background.

"I can't remember if I've ever seen snow before." Jane mentions, and the thought is much more sobering than she intended it to be.

"Well trust me, you're going to see plenty of it," Tash assures her, holding up her phone to display the 100% chance of freezing precipitation before tossing it back on the couch, "you have candles and flashlights and all that, if the power goes out, right?"

"Yep," Jane nods, nursing her glass in both hands, "Kurt made sure I was prepared for bad weather when I moved in. There's an emergency kit in the coat closet."

"Oh really?" Tash sets her own glass back on the coffee table, leaning back into the couch and drawing her legs up to her chest, swallowed by the throw she has wrapped around her. She's got that "tell me more" look her face, the one that consists of a leering smile and expectant eyes. Jane looks away, becoming very interested in the far wall and the lights on her Christmas tree that Patterson helped her decorate.

"C'mon smalls, spill it," Tash nudges her in the side with her foot, "what's up with you guys anyway? For a while there I thought the bedroom eyes between you two were going to do me in, but you haven't so much as looked Kurt's way since…" Tash hesitates and thinks better of broaching the subject of Jane's abduction. No one wants to talk about that tonight.

Tash's question is actually one she's asked herself a hundred times, and Jane's yet to find an answer. After a few seconds of silence, she sets her glass down next to Tash's on the coffee table. She sits up and crosses her legs, balancing her elbows on her thighs, curling her hands into fists and resting her chin on the flat of her knuckles. Maybe it's the alcohol, or maybe she's just tired of hiding it—either way the words come tumbling out, fueled by bravery and driven by desperation.

"I kissed him."

Tash blinks, momentarily dumbstruck, and then her eyes get big and wide, and her mouth makes a silent " _oh_."

"You _what_?"

"I kissed him," Jane ducks her head, and she wonders if she should have poured herself another glass to make this easier.

"Shut up!" Tash's reaction isn't what Jane is expecting, and the usually stoic FBI agent is reduced to small-child levels of excitement in a matter of seconds, "I knew it, I _so_ knew it!" She fist pumps the air, grinning like an idiot, "I gotta know the details, when did it happen, where, _why_? Reade's going to be _so pissed_ , because he officially just lost this bet."

"Wait," Jane narrows her eyes, "what bet?"

"I'd say sorry, but…" Tash shrugs apologetically, her eyes still smiling while she tries to choke back a giggle—nothing about her expression is expressing any kind of regret whatsoever.

It's slightly horrifying though, Jane thinks, to imagine that the entire team has been waiting for something to happen, and that Tash was so convinced it would that she thought it was worth wagering over. If it weren't for the fact that she isn't quite sober, Jane might have reacted a little more affronted to the fact she's at the center of a workplace betting pool, though in hindsight she's hardly surprised.

"Well?" Tash prods again, and Jane knows that she's not going to give it up.

"It just… It just happened," Jane replies, sighing and closing her eyes, running a hand over her face, "it was right after we caught David's killers, it was the same night I…" She can't bring herself to finish the sentence, casting Tash a helpless look.

"The same night you what?" Tash tilts her head as she considers the timeline, and then it hits her. "Oh. _Oh_."

"Yeah." Jane nods, and she grabs her glass back off the coffee table, finishing the last bit of bourbon still lingering in the bottom of it. She can still feel the lingering burn of the waterboarding if she stops to think about it long enough.

Tash is quiet for a moment, and Jane's waiting for the anvil to drop, for the interrogation to continue, but it doesn't. Instead Tash just watches her, and the look on her face changes, shifts into something that isn't teasing or taunting. No, what Jane sees as her friend's dark eyes stare back at her from across the couch is something else entirely; it's genuine concern.

"Can I tell you something, and I promise we won't talk about this ever again unless you want to?" Tash shifts a little closer, her hand reaching for Jane's knee.

"Of course," Jane's taken aback by Tash's complete one-eighty, but she nods, steeling herself for what's coming next.

"I don't know what's going on between you two, or what happened that night," Tash starts quietly, "and I don't have to know, because it's none of my business—it's not _anyones_ business if you don't want it to be," she adds pointedly, "but I see the way Kurt looks at you, Jane. He looks at you the same way everyday, regardless if anyone is watching or not, like you hung the fucking moon."

"Tash—"

"Hear me out, I'm almost done," Tash holds up a hand, "I've known Kurt for a long time, love him like a brother, and I'd do anything for him, but I love you too, Jane. This is me as your friend telling you this; what you're doing—pushing him away, because you think that's what's best—is just going to wind up getting you both hurt. And I think you've both been hurt enough."

This time it's Jane's turn to be shocked into silence.

She's shocked, because Tash is right, and she knows it, and there's absolutely nothing she can say.

"Just think about it ok?" Tash leans forward, squeezing her shoulder, "I don't mean to ruin our epic girls night, but we can always finish the rest of that bottle and you probably won't remember most of it anyway."

Tash starts to untangle herself from her blanket, standing up and stretching, and she goes right back to acting as if none of what she said just happened. Jane can't help but shake her head, smiling at Tash's unapologetic grin and nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, and despite the fact that she has every right to ignore what Tash just said to her—to be mad even—she knows she'd be an idiot if she did.

"How does eating our weight in ice cream sound?" Tash asks as she pads toward the kitchen.

"Like heaven." Jane replies, looking up at the lights on the tree, the star at the top. She breathes out a silent prayer of thanks and closes her eyes.

Maybe this is what she's needed all this time, someone else to change her perspective on the narrative.

Maybe Tash is right, and maybe, if she is, Jane can do something about it.

* * *

Tash wasn't kidding when she said there would be plenty of snow.

Jane sits at her kitchen table, cup of coffee in front of her, in sweats and an almost too-big cashmere sweater that hangs off her shoulder. Her wardrobe has grown in variety, slowly, but surely, thanks to the girls. She's spent most of her Christmas Eve watching the white stuff accumulate on the ground just outside her window. She'd even gone outside earlier, before it got dark, to stick her hands in the snow to see what it felt like. It's childish, sill really, but she did it to satisfy that small piece of herself that still found fascination in the simple things.

Tash texted her earlier, saying she'd picked her family up from the airport, and to thank her for their evening together. Patterson had done the same, sending her a picture of her feet on a white sandy beach.

The only person she hasn't heard from is Kurt, but she figures he's probably just arrived in Pennsylvania with Sawyer and his sister. She wonders, briefly, what his hometown looks like— _her hometown_ —but try as she might to recall any kind of memory of that place, she can't. That ever present doubt lingers, the one where she questions whether or not the missing girl from his past was her at all.

She frowns out at the reflection of herself in the window, and up until now she's been fine, but it's moments like this she feels as though all she has for company is Taylor Shaw's ghost.

She grabs her coffee cup, glances at the sketchbook she keeps on the table, and absently flips through the drawings there. She's copied dozens upon dozens of her tattoos to paper, and many of the finished products hang on the far living room wall, were she's drawn lines and pinned notes, trying to make sense of the endless trail of clues. The only definitive thing in all of the madness is that she's the one responsible for creating it, and even though she still has trouble believing it, even though she's still haunted by the video Oscar had shown her, sometimes blaming herself is the only thing that makes sense.

Jane pushes the sketchbook aside, rises from the table and heads into the kitchen, when a knock on the door stops her dead in her tracks.

She freezes, wondering if she's just hearing things, if it's just the snow or the wind, but when the knock sounds again, with a little more force this time, she knows it's not her imagination. She carefully walks toward the door, and wonders if she should have grabbed the revolver in the drawer of the bedside table in her room. No one had called her, who could possibly be wandering around outside in the freezing cold this time of night?

She keeps the deadbolt locked, and cracks the door, a gust of cold air hitting her in the face.

She can't believe it when she sees who's standing there.

" _Kurt_?"

"Hi, Jane," Kurt grins, hunched into his jacket, braced against the cold, snow dusting his shoulders, "mind if I come in? It's kinda cold."

"Uh, right, once second." Jane quickly shuts the door, unlatches the deadbolt, and lets the door swing the rest of the way open, stepping aside so Kurt can hurry inside. He brings the snow with him, and the wind sneaks inside as well, rustling her drawings on the wall and the ornaments on the tree before she can get the door closed again.

"What are you doing here?" Jane demands, locking the door back, turning around and skirting around Kurt carefully as she moves back into the living room. "You're supposed to be in Pennsylvania, not to mention the roads are awful, how'd you even get here?"

"Flights were delayed," Kurt shrugs, trailing behind as she walks, blue eyes surveying her, "Sarah and Sawyer are still going, but I decided I had other things I needed to take care of."

"The kind of things that make you go out in the middle of a blizzard?" Jane turns and stops at the threshold of the kitchen, and he almost runs into her when she does. She levels him with a look of incredulity, arms crossed as they stand an arms length apart.

"Important things," Kurt corrects her, pausing before adding, "like being here with you."

It's the last thing she expects him to say.

Her mind flies back to her conversation with Tash the night before, and she wonders if she must have said something to him, but surely not… No, Kurt came here of his own accord, it isn't unusual for him to get something in his head and act on it out of sheer impulse, so showing up on her doorstep isn't all that surprising. What does surprise her are his words, the way he looks at her, as if he's desperate to compel her to understand, like he's terrified she'll send him away.

And this is the moment where she would send him away, where she would usually stop this—whatever this is—before it started, but Tash's words ring like a prophetic echo in her head. _You've both been hurt enough._ It's all she can hear as she looks up at Kurt, and she's overwhelmed by all of it—all of _him_.  
She doesn't want to push him away, not anymore.

"Kurt…" his name is a whisper, a question, and after weeks of denying herself she reaches for him, grabs his hand. They've been here before, she remembers it as vividly as the night it happened, the night she told him that he was her starting point.

"I know that there's a lot we need to talk about," Kurt curls his fingers around her wrist, squeezes it lightly, "I know there's a lot we need to figure out, you and me, and I know it won't be easy, but that doesn't matter to me." Kurt searches her face, and he's so close it makes her dizzy, it would be _so easy_ …

"You're the only thing that matters. Not the cases, not the tattoos, not what happened to you, or to me, or to Taylor—" his voice catches, and he takes a breath, reaching up so that his hands could frame her face "—just you, Jane, _only_ you."

Just like that the distance between them is gone. Just like that, Kurt Weller somehow manages to heal every injury and right every wrong, all at the expense of his own pain, and Jane realizes how stupid she's been, how incredibly insane she must be to think that locking him out would somehow be good for either of them.

So she kisses him. She kisses him for the second time, though she's dreamt about it a dozen times more. She kisses him and it's nothing like the the kiss on the street outside his apartment. That kiss had been cautious and gentle and chaste, but this is something else entirely. That had been tame, _this_ is starved. Jane's mouth melts into his and her fingers curl around the back of his neck, one of his hands finds it's way into her hair, the other at the small of her back, and once again she's standing on her tip-toes to meet him. He's more than willing to invite her, his lips parting, his teeth grazing hers hungrily, claiming what's his, backing her up until she's sandwiched between him and the wall of the hallway. She sighs into his mouth, traces the line of it with her tongue, and she curves into the arch of his body with her own until she can't get any closer.

Kurt forces them to break apart when she start's pulling at his shirt, and though he's reluctant to do so, he grabs her hands to stop her, kissing her quickly once—twice, before pulling back. She knows he's holding himself back, she can see it in his face, the hungry way his eyes flit from her eyes to her lips. Even now he's afraid of pushing her too far, of asking her for too much, and so he waits for her like he always does—like he always has.

"You don't have to stop," Jane says quietly, breathlessly, pulling herself from his grasp so that one hand can rest over his heart, the other tracing the line of his jaw, "I don't want you to."

Kurt searches her face, warring with himself, with his need to keep her safe and his need for just her. She knows it scares him, thinking about what crossing this line might do, and it scares her too. But what scares her more is losing this, losing him, and she remembers with astounding clarity what Patterson had said to her that night she showed up on his doorstep. She's not going to wait for happiness to find her, she thinks, and she shouldn't have to, because it's right here in front of her. It's him.

"Ok," Kurt exhales, his breath warm on her face, and he dips his head down, kissing her firmly. His hands rest squarely on her hips as he pulls back one more time, "but if anything is too much, _anything_ , just tell me, and we'll stop. Promise?"

"Promise," she breathes, and she almost can't stand the way he's looking at her, the with unadulterated adoration she feels she doesn't deserve, and she adores him for it.

When Kurt kisses her again, there's no holding back, no carefully calculated assessment as his lips assault her own, as they travel from her mouth to the juncture of her neck where her pulse races beneath the bird tattooed along it's length. His actions and reactions become uninhibited as he pulls her toward him, as he pulls her away from the wall and toward the bedroom. She pushes his jacket off and it falls to the ground, followed by their shoes, his belt, her sweats—they travel in a tangled mess of arms and legs and lips across the floor.

She laughs when the back of her knees hits the edge of the bed and he lays her down against the charcoal grey of the comforter, partly because of his ridiculous smile, partly because it dawns on her that this is the first time he's ever been in her room. It'll be the first time he's seen her completely naked in person too, not a redacted piece of a picture on a computer screen. And as much as it has worried her, wondering what he'll think when he sees her— _really sees her_ —she's too distracted by his hands traveling over the flat of her stomach, over her ribs as they remove her sweater, to remember what being self-conscious even means.

He hovers over her, his hands on either side of her head, and she reaches up to undo the buttons of his shirt, taking her time with each one, letting her fingers linger as they trace a clear line down the center of his chest. He half growls, half chuckles against her mouth, and it sends a thrill through her, makes her toes curl and a warmth unfurl in her belly. He reaches behind her shoulder blades and deftly undoes her bra, and then he sits back and hooks his fingers into the edge of her underwear on either side of her hips, sliding them past her legs and discarding both black garments with the rest of their clothes on the floor.

He's quiet for a moment, and she wonders, fleetingly, if he's having second thoughts.

"You're beautiful, Jane."

She isn't expecting it, the sincerity in his words, in his eyes, and all of the emotions of the last few weeks that she's kept at bay come tumbling down on her in an instant. She doesn't feel like she deserves this, she doesn't feel like she deserves him.

She opens her mouth, wants so badly to say the three words on the tip of her tongue, but she can't, because it's too soon. It's too much. She promises herself then that she will say them, someday, because he deserves that, and she wants to him to hear it from her.

"I know," he assures her, as if he's already read her mind, and he places a chaste kiss to her forehead with that crooked grin she loves so much firmly in place, "Merry Christmas, by the way."

The next morning, laying next to him in bed, resting soundly for the first time in months, she can't help but think that it's fitting her first Christmas memory, like all the others, will be of him.

* * *

 _ **AN:** thanks for reading y'all, your feedback always makes me smile, I appreciate each and everyone of you! xo_


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